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US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies
- humaniania 6y agoI have never seen a compelling argument for why this should not be allowed.
- 24gttghh 6y agoSecurity, fraud, and lack of a physical paper trail.
- wool_gather 6y agoWhat physical paper trail currently exists? For a voice vote, there's no counting; for a standing vote, there's no individual identification of senators; for a roll call vote, it's centralized through the clerk anyways.
- 24gttghh 6y agoThis was the first comment on the article and I responded before reading that it was about senators voting. Not everyday citizens/residents voting.
- kissickas 6y agoIn addition to the point raised by wool_gather, why do you need a paper trail with non-anonymous voting? The votes never need to be re-counted, as far as I know. A senator would surely notice if a "yea" appeared next to her "nay" vote.
- 24gttghh 6y agoI said that before realizing the article was about literal senators voting remotely. My bad.
- lisper 6y agoYou would have to decide on a process for senators to formally register their votes remotely, and that process would have to be one that could not be hacked even by a state actor because the stakes are incredibly high. That is a tall order even for a group of technically competent people, and the U.S. Senate is not generally known for its technical competence.
- smt88 6y agoThere are only 100 senators, and lots of people track their votes. A senator logging a surprising vote would be asked about it and able to correct the record. Hacking a senate vote wouldn't be much use in the long run.
- ufo 6y agoExactly. Remote voting is easier when the votes don't need to be secret.
- lisper 6y agoThat is far from clear. Imagine that the famous vote on repealing Obamacare had been done remotely and someone had hacked John McCain's famous thumbs-down vote to be a vote in favor of repeal. Imagine further that before the matter could be clarified with McCain, he had become incapacitated and died. That is a plausible scenario. It only takes one hack at the margins to change the course of history.
- smt88 6y ago> * Imagine that the famous vote on repealing Obamacare had been done remotely and someone had hacked John McCain's famous thumbs-down vote to be a vote in favor of repeal.* It would've been corrected in minutes. McCain knew he was the deciding vote and the media firesform would've alerted him to an incorrect vote almost immediately. All of these people have large teams monitoring their coverage and managing their PR. A voting mistake would be caught.
- pwinnski 6y ago
- ISL 6y agoThere are ~243 years of experience built in to making the government function as intended. Changing the implementation of the key function of one of the critical components must be done with great care. How does debate work? How is a quorum decided? How long will members have to vote? How are their votes authenticated? etc. Done wrong, votes in Congress could be perceived as sneaky and illegitimate, and legitimacy is critical. Members take advantage of procedural details all the time. When procedures are new or ill-defined, there are going to be lots of loopholes.
- smileysteve 6y ago> How does debate work? Roberts rules with a chairperson (current procedure) seems to translate nicely to a moderated web cast > How is a quorum decided? Is there a reason why taking roll by video and voice doesn't work in a video conference any less than it does in person? > How long will members have to vote? We don't have to change this with video conference software either > How are their votes authenticated? With the exception of deep fakes, video and voice confirmation. Surely, in a world where each representative could feasible allocate fiber installation to their house, they can whitelist IPs; if not much cheaper options such as VPNs and secure factors. > Congress could be perceived as sneaky and illegitimate, and legitimacy is critical Why wouldn't (non classified) meetings be broadcast on CSpan? (Requiring HD Video and HD Voice seems like a no brainer for transparency)
- CalChris 6y agoArticle 1, Section 5, Clause 2: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, ... It really is up to the Senate how to do this. No one will (should) think less or more of the Senate if they do this.
- dguido 6y agoThe main reason is political: It would let senators stay in their home districts and campaign for their entire time in office, making it easier to neglect their duties to write and pass legislation. Politicians may be more motivated to work together on issues affecting the country in DC together. Staying in their home district could be a distraction because of the competing interests of being re-elected. In general, I think these remote voting proposals should include a time limitation. That there is some "trigger" when they take effect, and they need re-authorization every 30 days until the incident is over.
- chottocharaii 6y agoOTOH staying in their home districts means they may be more attentive to the needs of their home districts, and less likely to be swayed by pressure from the corridors of washington
- smileysteve 6y agoAnd all of a sudden further distanced from both lobbyists and the press
- pwinnski 6y agoMaking things more expensive for lobbyists sounds like a good idea to me.
- bpodgursky 6y agoThe Senate (really all of congress, but especially the Senate) is supposed to be a deliberative body. There's supposed to be discussion and debate of any measure put forth, convincing others of the right and wrong in a given bill. This is why there's a filibuster, quorum rules, etc. If you set up a system where Senators can live at home, Zoom in to cast a vote, and otherwise not engage with other Senators, it doesn't really fulfill the "coming together and hashing things out" aspect of congress. It's a bunch of polarized Senators staying polarized, now without even human contact. (and it's fair to say "we're basically there already", but it's also fair to say "but we're not quite there, and we should preserve and foster whatever bipartisan interaction we have". I just don't think it's a no-brainer.)
- karatestomp 6y agoOh, I thought the headline meant remote voting for, you know, voters, not Senators, and was very surprised to see an R next to one of the sponsor's names. The bill's just to let the Senate vote remotely. I'd imagine most of the interesting nuance is about "presence" and quorum-making. This is not about expanding remote/by-mail voting in elections, which Republicans have generally been strongly against, including and especially since the Covid-19 crisis started. [EDIT] correction: it's not a bill, either, it's (as the headline correctly notes) a resolution to change Senate rules.
- jkeuhlen 6y agoThe federal government does not have the jurisdiction to change how people vote in elections. That is determined by the states.
- karatestomp 6y agoRight, but it could have been an amendment, or (more likely) some incentive-based "we're not making you, you'll just get less money if you don't" thing.
- ceejayoz 6y agoPlenty of precedent for that sort of thing, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law > States had to agree to the limit if they desired to receive federal funding for highway repair.
- winter_blue 6y agoOn a tangential note, these lawmakers failed to see the real consequence of a 55 mph speed limit: the invisible economic loss of longer commute times probably far outweighed any of the minor 0.5 to 1% savings in gas. Those hours spent on the road are hours that people could be spending with their family, at work, or doing whatever else they like. According to the Census Bureau, 128 million today commute daily in the US. Let's say they spend an average of 30 minutes on the highway at a top speed of 65 mph. If we raised the speed limit by 50% (to 97.5 mph), then the average commute would become: 30 / 1.5 = 20 minutes. Each individual would save 10 minutes a day. With 252 working days a year, that's 2520 minutes saved a year -- which is a total of 42 hours saved per year. That's a lot of time. Across 128 million commuters, we'd save 5.376 billion hours per year. If people earned an average of $20/hour, that would be $107 billion of added economic activity per year. Whereas even 1% of gas savings would not be more than $2 billion saved per year.
- kd5bjo 6y agoThe Senate is a deliberative body, and its primary work requires debate. Already too much gets done behind closed doors and outside the public eye. Dispensing with even the pretense of open debate is somewhat concerning.
- smt88 6y agoPeople can debate remotely, too.
- jschwartzi 6y agoYes. People overlook this as well, that Roberts Rules of Order are primarily a tool for arbitrating discussion in huge groups of people. Technological solutions for managing these discussions exist or can be created now. So it's possible to have a virtual senate floor where the traditional rules of order are followed, people are allowed to speak, testify, etc. without being physically present in the same room. As long as the Senate's plan requires the traditional mode of session there's nothing wrong with using technology to allow them to hold sessions remotely. In fact this may lead to more participation from Senators because they no longer have to choose between presence on the Senate floor or presence within their district.
- salawat 6y agoHow's a filibuster work when a surreptitiously orchestrated connection drop inevitably becomes ground for relinquishing the floor? Furthermore, part of getting everyone colocated with the apparata of government is to ensure unfettered access to staffers/resources. The Library of Congress isn't just there for decoration you know. It is actually there to be utilized. Furthermore, there is the potential for breach of highly sensitive state information if you go full telepresence. This really isn't something to approach lightly.
- nrclark 6y agoFilibustering is an emergent property of profoundly broken processes in our Senate. If remote meetings force some procedural change, that's probably in everybody's best interest.
- djcjr 6y agoWhen was the last time a candidate represented your views? Does voting matter any more?
- ilikehurdles 6y agoWe benefited in a number a ways from the regulations imposed on insurance by the ACA. Obama represented some of my view, but not all of them all the way, and was counter to some of my other views, yet I voted for him and considered that the right choice. It's been nice being in states where people voted for candidates that legalized marijuana. Does a candidate need to be an exact spitting image of me and my values to be worth voting for?
- quadrangle 6y agoVoting will only really get power to the people when we implement a system that works. The best option out there is STAR Voting https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/ and online polls at https://star.vote/ https://star.vote/ As long as we have choose-one voting, it will devolve to two dominant parties that do not need to care about most voters' interests.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoI've never heard of STAR, but I'm not immediately convinced it's the best option. It would be interesting to see actual data comparing it to other voting methods (e.g. [1], not the table on the STAR website). I'm partial to ranked choice voting for most local elections and House elections, because you can do some interesting things with proportional representation. [1] http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ [2] https://www.fairvote.org/fair_rep_in_congress#what_does_the_fair_representation_act_do https://www.fairvote.org/fair_rep_in_congress#what_does_the_...
- quadrangle 6y agoVariants of STAR voting can do Proportion Representation. There's no need to stick to Ranked Choice just for that. The best research out there indicates STAR as the best, and it works best by that simulation you describe as well. Here's some references: The exact same approach as your first link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4FXLQoLDBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4FXLQoLDBA https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/VSE/ https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/VSE/ https://paretoman.github.io/ballot/newer.html https://paretoman.github.io/ballot/newer.html The only Ranked Choice approach anyone is promoting is Instant Runoff which discards preference votes relatively arbitrarily. Your second choice vote never counts if they happen to get eliminated in an earlier round than your first choice. If you have trouble following how IRV unfairly counts votes and even leads to bad outcomes, this simple demonstration may help make it clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q10TsLw_3YI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q10TsLw_3YI Now, there are some options like Ranked Pairs that are at least arguably okay, but that's far more complex to understand and to tabulate and nobody is actually promoting it in real use.
- ShakataGaNai 6y agoThey're making sure they can vote... but yet no one has worked to make sure all of the American people can vote safely (Read also: mail in ballots for everyone).
- bcrosby95 6y agoThe constitution leaves a lot of details about voting to the states. This would probably require an amendment. A power grab like that from the federal government would probably be turned down by even blue states, especially considering the current president.
- Uehreka 6y agoIt doesn’t need to be a power-grab (“We’re taking over the election to make sure it’s done right”). In all likelihood it would be some sort of funding incentive (“If you resolve to do vote-by-mail, we’ll give you the money to hire people and buy equipment to do it, and even throw in some money for infrastructure as a cherry on top”).
- MiroF 6y agoAnd further, this is how the federal government governs in the vast majority of cases. Sure, it doesn't have the ability to directly mandate what states do, but it does have the carrot-and-stick.
- bobthepanda 6y agoThe problem with this approach is that it leaves a patchwork solution and still leaves the most disenfranchised out of the running, because ideology trumps free money. See: ACA Medicare expansion.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- arrosenberg 6y agoThat still fractures the ideologues and allows you to defeat them in detail. I would consider it a win if Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Iowa all adopted voter enfranchisement as a policy.
- natch 6y agoOff topic since this is about senators, but to nip a possible related thread in the bud, an important reason why remote voting for citizens is a bad idea is that it can enable massive scale vote manipulation through schemes to buy or otherwise influence votes. In the privacy of one's home, outside a controlled voting booth, the problem is exacerbated, counterintuitively. A voter at home or in another uncontrolled setting could follow instructions for how to vote and then use a camera, or witnesses who are in on the scheme, to prove that they had voted a certain way, at the behest of others. In a traditional voting booth situation, where nobody else can see or verify how you voted, this kind of manipulation is not so easy to do on a mass scale.
- karatestomp 6y agoHas this happened with members of the military or in states that already allow vote-by-mail? If not, why not?
- malandrew 6y agoProbably not, but mainly due to scale. The number of people who vote remotely is so few that the amount of fraud you can get through without being detected makes it not worth the effort.
- runako 6y agoColorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah conduct their elections entirely by mail. This covers perhaps 10+ million registered voters. At what level would you consider the scale sufficient for these effects to appear?
- malandrew 6y agoThree of those four state are reliably blue. The real reward is for swing states.
- wool_gather 6y ago
- swalsh 6y agoI fear that if we do this, and Trump wins again, people will not trust the outcome of the election... I'm not quite sure what happens to this country, if people don't think the elections are legitimate. We almost ran into it with Kerry Vs Bush. But people's feelings are amplified when it comes to Trump.
- mtmail 6y agoThe article is not about citizens voting.
- karatestomp 6y agoThis is just for Senators. Not citizens voting in elections. The headline makes this seem more important than it is. It's still notable, but far less so than allowing/mandating universal vote-by-mail (like several states already do, plus members of the military everywhere), which would be widely expected to swing elections heavily "blue".
- coldcode 6y agoNo. If they want to lord it over the average American let them sacrifice a little comfort. The can always wear masks and face shields to block their pompous speechifying from causing illness. If doctors and nurses risk their lives to save people, why can't wealthy Senators risk a little to save/help the country. They could even put little booths around each desk like Costco does their checkout stands or meet in some larger space. Leaving them home to ignore the country and spend all their timer raising money is not what we elected them to do.
- irrational 6y agoI know this is talking about Senator voting, but I feel like it is time for states to seriously adopt mail-in voting like Oregon (and other states). We have to assume that there could be a shelter-in-place order in the future during the beginning of November. Better to prepare now rather than to scramble for a solution at the last minute.
- malandrew 6y agoHow do we do remote voting securely? The moment you move from a tiny minority voting by mail to the overwhelming majority voting by mail, the payoff for corrupting that process goes up dramatically.
- lozaning 6y agoIs there some part of the way states that already do it are doing it that you take umbrage with?
- Armisael16 6y agoI'm not the person you responded to, but current vote-by-mail procedures do make it impossible to ensure a secret ballot.
- rovolo 6y agoHere's the process for WA; which step do you think makes it "impossible" for the ballot to remain secret? 1) You fill out the ballot, there is no identifying information on the ballot. 2) You put the ballot into a privacy sleeve, and then put the ballot into the envelope. 3) You seal and sign the envelope; then put it in the mailbox. 4) Your mail carrier takes the envelope and delivers it to the election commission. 5) The sealed envelopes are examined in person during the counting process to check that the signature is valid. (3rd parties can observe the counting process to make sure procedures are being followed) 6) The ballot in the privacy sleeve are removed from the envelope and placed in a separate box. 7) Boxes of ballots are counted by separate poll workers. (If by "secret ballot" you mean people can sell their vote, mailed ballots can be cancelled with a "cancellation form". You can then request a new ballot by mail, or vote in person.)
- ohazi 6y agoAh yes... "Remote voting for me, but not for thee."
- ackbar03 6y agohttps://youtu.be/FFag42JZBwc https://youtu.be/FFag42JZBwc
- J5892 6y agoI'm against this resolution, because it opens up the possibility of senate voter fraud. What's to stop dead senators from voting? Or senators from voting twice? This may even make it possible for former felons in the senate to vote!
- eanzenberg 6y agoNot sure how you equate 100 known peoples' votes to potentially 330m peoples' votes.
- winter_blue 6y agoHe was being farcical to make a point.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kfrzcode 6y agoThe problem with sarcasm on the internet is that it's nigh impossible to pickup on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sarchismo 6y agoNo, it's only a problem on Hacker News because everything is Serious Business.
- optimuspaul 6y agoI had no problem detecting the sarcasm.
- J5892 6y agoNo, there's no problem with sarcasm on the internet. It's only a problem for the people who don't get it. And judging from the point total on my post, the vast majority of people got it.
- outside1234 6y agoBut what about the potential for fraud!
- rfreytag 6y agoInteresting that I cannot access this link over TOR unless the exit router is based in the US.
- nrmitchi 6y agoI know that the actual text goes into a bit more detail about when this should be allowed, but it's kind of important to remember that strictly speaking, "During National Emergencies" is "all the time" due to the fact that there are, at the current moment, 34 active National Emergencies. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
- aerovistae 6y ago@dang could we update this very misleading headline to "US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Senate Voting During Emergencies"?
- smeyer 6y agoJust one person, but I didn't find this "very misleading". On first read of the title I assumed it was allowing senators to vote on senate votes remotely. Neither the current title nor your proposed title is the original I currently see on the article and I could imagine the title being improved, but I think it's unfair to characterize it as "very misleading".
- happytoexplain 6y agoI don't really think it's unfair. It's obviously not "very misleading" on purpose, but it's a little silly to look at the title "Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting" during a time when there is a lot of worry and argument about the ability of citizens to vote remotely and not assume most people will think they're talking about citizen votes. Hell, even if it weren't a currently relevant topic, I'm confident most people would still assume "voting" refers to the thing people do at the ballot boxes. That's just the default meaning of the word when the topic is US politics.
- api 6y agoI am deeply concerned about the security of any online voting system for anyone. It can be done securely, but I have zero confidence in the IT ability of our government to actually achieve security. The past record of pathetic electronic voting machine security speaks to this.
- anticensor 6y agoThis is dangerous as it allows faking parliamentary motions and casting fake votes.
- williesleg 6y agoI wish we could all vote remotely! I'd vote a whole bunch of times!
- linsomniac 6y agoI'm surprised that contingency plans weren't already in place and just needed to be activated. I mean, this is the government that has plans for when and where the President and VP can go together, succession, bombers in the air continuously, remote launch authorization, where to move the President in the case of attack... Seems odd that there weren't contingency plans for what Congress operation...
- dang 6y agoI know nothing about the Senate resolutions process, but this seems to fall in the same ballpark as "bill proposal". Most proposed bills never go anywhere, so we usually treat them as off topic. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20bills&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...